The annual college entrance examination has started again, and parents outside the examination hall are still more tormented than the candidates in the examination hall. A web video shows many parents worshipping at the entrance of the examination hall, whether she (they) really believe in God or not, they expect their children to get some kind of blessing and get into the desired university as they wish.
Decades ago, the college entrance exam was known as a one-way street, the only way for young people to get a regular, decent job, and for more rural youth, the only way to escape their fate. Now that China has become the world’s second largest economy, and the Communist Party’s top brass is eager to challenge the United States for supremacy, most young people in mainland China are still unable to break free from the cage of the college entrance exam, and many parents are betting on the expectations of their children.
The number of applicants for the college entrance exam in 2021 reached 10.78 million, the third year in a row that the number exceeded 10 million, which confirms that young people in mainland China have increasingly narrowed their options other than taking the college entrance exam.
The acceptance rate for college entrance exams in mainland China has been rising year after year, with the overall acceptance rate for key undergraduates, general undergraduates and specialists reaching about 80%. Of course, parents expect their children to enter key undergraduate institutions, or at least undergraduate institutions, and the difference in starting line will largely determine the future course of their lives.
While 10.78 million families are desperately competing for a new starting line, another wave has reached the finish line of college life. 9.09 million college graduates are about to graduate, but will have to face the harsher truth that many of them will not be employed. Getting a college diploma should be considered a ticket to the job market, but in mainland China, college diplomas are becoming less and less useful.
The fact that university diplomas are no longer useful is an embarrassment to the world’s second-largest economy, a sign that the economy of mainland China is not as golden as it could be, and that the GDP figures, which have been falsified year after year, are also looking bad. Not only is it difficult for the 9.09 million college students graduating in 2021 to find jobs, but how many of the 8.74 million college students graduating in 2020 are still unemployed and how many will soon be unemployed, the exact number of which is impossible to know, but their parents should know exactly.
Despite this, the number of college entrance exams in 2021 is still at a record high. People know they may not have a job even after college, but how many options are there beyond that?
Perhaps less than 10% of families can consider sending their children abroad, but the majority of the other more than 90% do not have the financial resources to do so and will have to wait and see. Of course, if children who go abroad to study can eventually immigrate overseas, it is a great success; if they have to return to China after graduation, they do not seem to have much advantage in finding jobs compared to mainland graduates.
The college entrance examination system has always been controversial, and some people even compare it with the imperial examination system, which is actually not the same thing at all. In ancient times, people took the imperial examination, basically to enter the government, only the best can get out of the line; today’s college entrance examination, but want to get a certificate for a possible future career, can only be considered a way to survive.
Now in mainland China, if you want to enter the official career of the Chinese Communist Party, it is a completely different path, you cannot learn it from books, you can only truly understand it if you learn to fall in the official field of the Chinese Communist Party; and the best students who have accomplished their studies may be able to memorize their political lessons, but they may not be able to enter the official field. Job hunting is becoming more and more difficult, college graduates applying for civil service has always been considered popular, but the final examinee has mostly been decided, others are just accompanying the list.
Parents who do not have access to the officialdom, state-owned enterprises and institutions today, I’m afraid it is difficult to find a job, even if you are prepared to pay to go up and down, may not be sent out; even if you finally get the preparation, a few years of wages may not be worth the money sent. Foreign enterprises, private enterprises, a little lenient times have passed, the bosses who can still survive should not have much recruitment plans. “Lay flatism” has become more and more young people’s helpless picture.
Li Keqiang said that in 2020, “to achieve more than 11 million new jobs in urban areas”, this year’s college graduates will have 9.09 million. Therefore, Li Keqiang had to say to college students seeking employment “I hope you have big ambitions and create a big career through mass entrepreneurship and innovation”, or “flexible employment”.
The parents who accompany the college entrance examination today may not be able to appreciate the possible situation in a few years, but now they can only pray for the good luck of the college entrance examination for the time being, or at least not to become a victim of the secret operation of the college entrance examination admission. Parents should be generally aware of the many unknowns they have to face, and the worship outside the examination hall reflects their true state of mind, living in mainland China today, who can know what the future holds?
In many cases, parents themselves have little choice, and the expectations of their children become a kind of trust, but reality is breaking the dreams of one family, seeing as the next generation still has little choice!
Recent Comments